Page:Sermons for all the Sundays in the year.djvu/98

 desired: ”What have I in heaven? and, besides thee, what do I desire upon earth? Thou art the God of my heart and the God that is my portion for ever." (Ps. lxxxii. 25, 26.) He is not afflicted at leaving honours, because the only honour which he sought was, to love and to be loved by God. All the honours of this world he has justly esteemed as smoke and vanity. He is not afflicted at leaving his relatives, because he loved them only in God. In his last moments he recommends them to his heavenly Father, who loves them more than he does. And having a secure confidence of salvation, he hopes to be better able to assist his relatives from Paradise, than on this earth. In a word, what he frequently said during life, he continues to repeat with greater fervour at the hour of death”My God and my all." 5. Besides, his peace is not disturbed by the pains of death; but, seeing that he is now at the end of his life, and that he has no more time to suffer for God, or to offer him other proofs of love, he accepts those pains with joy, and offers them to God as the last remains of life; and uniting his death with the death of Jesus Christ, he offers it to the Divine Majesty. 6. And although the remembrance of the sins which he has committed will afflict, it will not disturb him; for, since he is convinced that the Lord will forget the sins of all true penitents, the very sorrow which he feels for his sins, gives him an assurance of pardon. ”If the wicked do penance. ... I will not remember all his iniquities that he hath done." (Ezec. xviii. 21 and 22.) "How," asks St. Basil, "can anyone be certain that God has pardoned his sins? He may be certain of pardon if he say: I have hated and abhorred iniquity." (In Reg. inter. 12.) He who detests his sins, and offers to God his death in atonement for them, may rest secure that God has pardoned them. ”Mors," says St. Augustine, ”quæ in lege naturæ erat poona peccati in lege gratiæ est hostia pro peccato." (Lib. iv. de Trin. c. xxii.) Death, which was a chastisement of sin under the law of nature, has become, in the law of grace, a victim of penance, by which the pardon of sin is obtained. 7. The very love which a soul bears to God, assures her of his grace, and delivers her from the fear of being